Ensuring there are sufficient school places to meet parental demand is a statutory duty for councils. This means that councils must make population and pupil forecasts in order to anticipate changes in demand. Where additional places are required the council is responsible for securing them. This applies to maintained schools, voluntary controlled schools, voluntary aided schools, free schools and academies.
Every year the council is required to make a school capacity (SCAP) return to the Department for Education (DfE). This includes information about the number of children on roll in each school planning area by age, as well as details of the capacity of schools.
The data from the SCAP return has, over recent years, identified building pressure on places in the north of the city, mainly at Whitecross High School, but increasingly at Aylestone School (which neighbour each other’s catchment area). To put this into context, using Autumn Term 2021 data, 1189 learners have Whitecross as their nearest school, it has a capacity of 945. Likewise, Aylestone has 695 learners living closest and a capacity of 450. Both schools had a waiting list following admissions allocations in September 2022.
Additional capacity is now required to meet growing numbers in the north of the city. We are unable to build capacity at Whitecross, for the reasons outlined below in alternative options, therefore additional capacity at Aylestone School would relieve the overall pressure in the north of the city whilst still allowing those who might sit in the catchment of Whitecross High School to be able to walk or cycle to Aylestone School.